February 26 - Johnny Cash (The Musical Birthday Series, 7th Annual Cycle)

Previous posts for February 26th are here: Frank Bridge (2020), Fats Domino; Betty Hutton (2021), Franz Strauss; Johnny Cash (2022), Anton Reicha (2023), Jackie Gleason (2024), and Stefano Landi (2025)

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Johnny Cash (26 February 1932 – 12 September 2003) was an American singer, songwriter, musician, and actor.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Cash Cachet

The wise would say it's rather rash

To pen a poem on Johnny Cash,

    Especially a light one,

For if you try to write a smash,

Invoke the ghost of Ogden Nash,

And smoke a cigarette to ash, 

And still you end up writing trash,

   It could come back to bite one.

But comic verse is just a dash

Of humor, nothing bold or brash,

A thing that's over in a flash, —

   And so I think I'll write one.

 

 

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February 25 - Carlo Goldoni; Erich von Hornbostel (The Musical Birthday Series, 7th Annual Cycle)

Previous posts for February 25th are here: Myra Hess (2020), George Harrison; Enrico Caruso (2021), Enrico Caruso (2022), Armand-Louis Couperin (2023), Enrico Caruso (2024), and Enrico Caruso (2025)

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Carlo Osvaldo Goldoni (25 February 1707 – 6 February 1793) was an Italian playwright playwright and librettist. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Golden Boy

His plays make rich use of the Venetian language, regional vernacular, and colloquialisms, and offered his contemporaries images of themselves, often dramatizing the lives, values.  -- adapted from Wikipedia 

No visage was solemn or stony

When watching a play by Goldoni,

Where Venetian vernacular

Eschewed the spectacular

In stories more comic than tony.

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Erich von Hornbostel (25 February 1877 – 28 November 1935) was an Austrian ethnomusicologist, comparative musicologist, and scholar of music.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Everything in Its Place

 

He is remembered for his pioneering work in the field of ethnomusicology, and for the Sachs-Hornbostel system of musical instrument classification. -- Wikipedia

Erich von Hornbostel did work which describes

The music of villagers, natives, and tribes,

With special attention to cultural vibes.

He listened to instruments, noted their tone.

And how they were stroked, plucked, beaten, or blown,

Then placed them in families ending  in "--phone".

 

 

 

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February 24 - Johann Baptist Cramer; Charles Frederick Horn (The Musical Birthday Series, 7th Annual Cycle)

Previous posts for February 24th are here: Arnold Dolmetsch (2020), Arrigo Boito (2021), Samuel Wesley (2022), Michel Legrand (2023), and Luigi Denza (2024)

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Johann Baptist Cramer (24 February 1771 – 16 April 1858) was an English pianist, composer and music publisher of German origin.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

High Praise

Beethoven considered him the finest pianist of the day from the standpoint of pure technical perfection.  – Wikipedia

Though Beethoven was known to speak,

Of Cramer's fabulous technique,

I'd have to guess that his critique

Of Cramer's works was more oblique.

 

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Charles Frederick Horn (24 February 1762 – 3 August 1830) was an English musician and composer, and music tutor to various members of the royal family of George III, including Queen Charlotte.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Horning In

I seldom greet the dawning morn

By thinking of Charles Frederick Horn,

But on this day when he was born

All prejudice should be foresworn —

Away with doubts! Away with scorn! —

And may the sounding brass adorn

This festival of C. F. Horn!

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February 23 - John Blow; George Frideric Handel (The Musical Birthday Series, 7th Annual Cycle)

Previous posts for February 23rd are here: George Frideric Handel (2020), John Blow; George Frideric Handel (2021), Handel (2022), (2023), (2024), (2025)

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George Frideric Handel (23 February 1685 – 14 April 1759) was one of the greatest, and still most popular, of Baroque composers.

John Blow (bapt. 23 February 1649 – 1 October 1708) was a significant English composer and organist. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Two In One

By the strange machinations of Fate

Both Handel and Blow share this date,

A thing that is nifty

For Brits who are thrifty,

Since it saves on the china and plate.

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Blow by Blow

Venus and Adonis is considered by some to be either a semi-opera or a masque. -- Wikipedia

Five lines aren't enough for the task,

If you should be tempted to ask

If the musical show

By composer John Blow

Was an opera or merely a masque.

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Two Handelian Limericks Sharing an Opening

(1) Attention Span

Messiah enjoys popularity

And thus it is never a rarity,

But will sheer repetition 

As a yearly tradition

Fatigue an impatient posterity.

(2) The Rest of the Story

Messiah enjoys popularity

In spite of the earnest severity

Of parts two and three,

Which for some tend to be

A trial of sacred austerity.

 

 

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